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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The front pages after Dom’s big day
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The front pages after Dom’s big day
One telling reaction has come from Mark Wallace of ConHome under the headline “I admire Dominic Cummings – but he needs to resign now“. He notes:
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Oooh, first again!
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1265011724111011845
A Japanese paper I posted yesterday showed their statistics indicated transmission was around 18 times more likely indoors.
Even allowing for much greater mask wearing in Japan, that’s a huge difference.
I wouldn’t want to sit in a crowded football stand, but it looks as though parks are pretty safe.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.21.20104521v1
Full genome sequences are increasingly used to track the geographic spread and transmission dynamics of viral pathogens. Here, with a focus on Israel, we sequenced 212 SARS-CoV-2 sequences and use them to perform a comprehensive analysis to trace the origins and spread of the virus. A phylogenetic analysis including thousands of globally sampled sequences allowed us to infer multiple independent introductions into Israel, followed by local transmission. Returning travelers from the U.S. contributed dramatically more to viral spread relative to their proportion in incoming infected travelers. Using phylodynamic analysis, we estimated that the basic reproduction number of the virus was initially around ~2.0-2.6, dropping by two-thirds following the implementation of social distancing measures. A comparison between reported and model-estimated case numbers indicated high levels of transmission heterogeneity in SARS-CoV-2 spread, with between 1-10% of infected individuals resulting in 80% of secondary infections. Overall, our findings underscore the ability of this virus to efficiently transmit between and within countries, as well as demonstrate the effectiveness of social distancing measures for reducing its spread....
A puzzling thought too; surely he and his wife must have discussed what they would do in the event of infection. People are in and out of Downing Street all the time. I'm surprised too, that apparently no-one in that sensitive work situation was tested, especially after one, at least, junior minister was infected.
In this case, the routes of transmission were almost certainly in the main contaminated surfaces rather than respiratory.
(Possibly of interest to @Foxy )
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1264922133722886144
Note Starmer has still not explicitly called for Cummings resignation, his take is that “if he were Prime Minister” he would have fired him. That puts the onus not on Cummings behaviour in going to County Durham - but on Johnson’s behaviour in not dismissing Cummings. That’s telling. The attack will be that Johnson is too weak to fire a man who has caused so much embarrassment to the government. As I said yesterday it is legal, and commonplace, to dismiss someone for reputational reasons (esp in politics), whatever the rights and wrongs of the individual’s actions. Why can’t Johnson do that? His supporters will say loyalty and morality. His detractors will say weakness. We’ll see who wins out. Personally I don’t see charges of “loyalty and morality”:sticking to Boris Johnson.
https://twitter.com/MackayIM/status/1265088171907272704
They could probably increase price by 2-3x and get those kind of attendances so might be able to salvage 50% of gate revenue.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8351165/Tories-rebel-Trade-Secretary-Liz-Truss-plots-betray-UK-farmers-Trump-deal.html
And for Prem clubs it doesnt really matter. They can just not renew 4 or 5 players contracts and play youth players or cheaper ones as backup next season and be fine.
Its the football league clubs, where season tickets might be £300 going up to £750 for the few who would get to see it.
Remember, going to a football match is a social event. Remove the social part and the attraction diminishes greatly.
How can they tell whether Liverpool had more cases because there was a super spreader at a nightclub, a school, a church or a football match?
They cant.
Look at the quality of the cabinet, that is the reason Cummings is indispensable. As soon as the crisis is stable, we need the return of the better Tory MPs to cabinet, or at least replace the dimwits with the new intake and see how they get on.
lol
Certainly their public data starts on the day the app started 29 March:
https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#levels-over-time
Cheltenham was 10-13 March, Liverpool Atletico was 11 March.
The story is a complete guess, no data behind it.
Meanwhile back in the real world Wales Online compare the desolate Bank Holiday beaches in Wales to standing room only in Bournemouth and Brighton.
Absolute madness! And the starting pistol was fired from Downing Street.
As seen as hardly anyone is getting covid-19 now , the madness is on the part of Wales
After a good nite's sleep and a break from this fiasco I revisit it this morning satisfied now that Cummings just told a whole pack of lies. The Castle story just didn't bear any kind of examination and served only to make the less gullible among us question everything more sceptically.
Just how ill was his wife? How ill was he? What happened to the kid and what was the diagnosis on him? Why did they accompany him to hospital when they allegedly had both been affected? Did they really make those journeys without normal breaks? Did the wife drive, and if not, why not?
He's a liar and he's taking us all for mugs.
To believe in the acca is being wilfully blind.
Mr. Punter, not necessarily. It's entirely possible the PM feels he can't govern without Cummings. Or that Boris Johnson's ill judgement is just making a repeat appearance.
I suspect that the outcome for many football clubs is that they are going to have to cut costs significantly for the next couple years to survive and that means that the players are going to find that their wages are going to be cut, and in some cases fairly drastically.
Cummings is also a committed libertarian (if not anarchist) . Therefore, he views the world from an individual perspective. Logically he would therefore do what is best for him . With the justification (he needs this to justify his belief system )that what is best for him is also best for the country or at least the tories. His "confident " personality means he can make this justification
a) drive in daylight? or
b) drive overnight arriving home at 3 am.?
Also, people who have had the virus say it leaves them feeling weak and tired. so, would you do a lengthy drive after breakfast and a good night's sleep or last thing at night?
Having a child myself and undertaken car journeys late at night in the past , I don't buy the line that they went at night so the kid could sleep. Yes, he might sleep but equally he might become overtired and irritable and create a distraction for the driver (who is likely to be tired from the virus and have concerns about his eyesight, according to this yarn).
The whole thing stinks more that a tank of rotting fish.
That might play even better.
However, the press have as well as this, a feeling that they should always set the agenda because they are special people, knowing instinctively what is right or wrong. As Jim Al-Khalili wrote, they don't do uncertainty, and being Arts graduates, they wallow in their ignorance of science.
They can't stop themselves.
At the Premiership level yes of course, the wage inflation of the past 30 years is over for a while and clubs will have smaller squads on lower wages.
I'm waiting for Guido to break the story of how one of his sternest critics broke lockdown to meet with their drug dealer. That will be delicious.
Meanwhile, when everyone finally gets bored of Cummings, the shops will be opening and the numbers of daily dead down to double figures. Job done.
But saying he drove there to *test his eyesight*? Simple madness. Nobody is going to give him a free pass on that.
If I was the second most important man in govt I would get a driver or a helicopter!
I suspect people who would never vote for Boris are now even more sure they will not vote for him.
The catch is (1) by no definition is that a ‘reasonable excuse,’ especially not when the household was in quarantine (2) many thousands of others in much less fortunate positions than the Cummings family have just had to stay where they are in small unventilated flats and suck it up, so the unfairness grates and (3) he’s plainly lying about why he did it.
And yet he doesn’t realise this doesn’t cut it.
It is possible Liverpool and Cheltenham were showing higher rates of infection than other places in April, and that is shown in their app.
It is impossible to deduce the reasons for that from the data in the app.
The question is, will it buy off Tory MPs, who have obviously been pretty shaken by the reaction?
Seems to me that yes, Johnson does feel he can't function in government without Cummings.
Being PM is hard and a ton of hassle from 5am or 6am until late at night every day.
‘We needed to be close to childcare.’
‘Why? Could nobody in London help?’
‘I dunno, it never crossed my mind to ask.’
Telegraph
"I did it for my family" plays well amongst Conservative voters.
https://twitter.com/FayeJ14/status/1265041688466161664
With little or no gate money for the rest of the year and a huge drop in sponsorship there is going to need to be huge cost reductions especially in the Championship down to the National League. Once you get below that a lot of the players are only on 1 or 2 year deals and therefore actually teams, come next month, will not have huge outgoings and therefore might actually be able to weather the storm.
The EPL obviously is a different planet financially when looking at the wealth of the owners and the TV money that they will get for playing competitive training matches for the forseeable future.
But early evidence suggests they don’t.